


Out Of The Woodwork

by Güneş Ersoy (crunchywizard)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Capitalism Complaint, Gen, enviromental problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-19 17:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19137226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crunchywizard/pseuds/G%C3%BCne%C5%9F%20Ersoy
Summary: Working for hours on end, cutting down giant oaks, loading them up and going through the Bulgaria-Turkey border unnoticed, and doing this all alone, everyday.





	Out Of The Woodwork

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! I'm a long time reader, newer contributor on AO3. This is my original work i first drafted for an english project at school, which is not my native language. I wrote this listening to Metal Gear Solid 4 music so it has that vibe. Hope you enjoy!

The chill of Balkanian air was brushing against his sweaty forehead as he worked. Hasan Ali was a rather well-built man, for lack of a better term, but he was starting to regret coming to the forest alone. 

Oh well. 

He couldn’t risk any friends or family going to jail with him in case he got caught, which he was fairly certain would never happen. 

The business of smuggling wood was a tough, yet rewarding one to say the least.  
Working for hours on end, cutting down giant oaks, loading them up and going through the Bulgaria-Turkey border unnoticed, and doing this all alone, everyday. 

When he finished cleaning up a fine, old oak tree, he heard a noise the first time that day. Hearing noises in the woods at night wasn’t anything new to Hasan, as he had been doing this for a long time–long time for a smuggler wasn’t very long per se, as they usually did not hold a single line of work. He was rather used to the calling of wolves at night, the crickets chirping through the early summer and the mechanical sound of machinery amiss to the ears in the seemingly innate nature all around him. 

But this growl he heard was not any of those things. 

It was wilder than the wolves, louder than the crickets, angrier than any factory. 

Getting up from where he was resting, he pulled out his rifle from his truck –both smuggled– and pointed it at the dark forest. He was in an area, now clean of trees thanks to him, and he was sure whatever was making these noises could easily see and surround him. He wondered if there were any bears in this territory, and suddenly his adrenaline driven brain remembered something he heard about long, long ago. 

He did any logical lumberjack trying to frighten a black bear; he growled right back at it. He let out the most inhumane, rough bark his chainsmoker throat could manage. And when the growling from the woods slowly decreased and at last, ended, he sighed with content, letting his guard down.

That second, what came through the trees wasn’t a bear, no, it wasn’t even an animal.

It was a beast. A mass of brown, furry limbs all sticking to an unbelievable body, with fangs as long as Hasan’s arm, it came sprinting towards him. Its eyes were bloodshot, feral and its pupils dilated in the dark.  
Hasan took a beat. That was his first mistake.  
The sound of his bones, crunching and breaking inside the Beast’s jaw echoed through the forest.  
Hasan screamed as he saw the fangs piercing his arm, out, pulling it apart from his body and into the dark mud covering the forest ground. 

The pain was ineffable. Hasan was awake with the sheer force of anger and adrenaline and shock and– oh god was this all his blood?  
Then he turned his head to the beast, wondering how was he still alive. Seeing that no, it was not all his blood, as the beast crawled and scream on the ground, its long body turning and twisting around itself. He dropped the rifle he did not realize he was holding until now, a faint smoke coming out of it. 

Hasan passed out as he heard the noise of something –possible himself falling on the ground. Warm blood, his or the Beast’s he did not know, was pooling around him, the smell of iron lulling him to sleep.  
Soon he did not feel the pain of his arm, in fact, he did not feel anything. 

He woke up after what felt like seconds. As quickly as he could manage, he got up from where he was lying down, and immediately heard a low growl.  
When he looked up, he saw that the beast was still there, although bloody and ruffled up, as he were. Its giant, grotesque body hanging from the nearest of the great oak trees, much like a big cat.  
A cat nearly the size of a bus, and one with facial features of a prehistoric creature, or a dragon.  
Hasan throughly and fully, got goosebumps as the thought settled in his mind. He had been attacked by an (Otherworldly? He did not know how to describe it) animal, which was still sitting in front of him.  
He couldn’t move, nor call for help. He was too far from the factory, from any road, from the town, from his home.  
The animal was right there, pupils now only a slit as the gentle morning light shined on the beast and the man, unforgiving, revealing.

It was severely wounded. Even worse off than Hasan, really. Which was saying something. 

There were several bullet wounds on its body, too many to be only Hasan’s handiwork. Looking closely, some of its limbs were broken or entirely cut off. On its back were long, all same sized cuts, resembling machine rotors. They revealed clotted blood and flesh underneath, its fur lumped together. 

The animal was dying, quite slowly but surely, painfully. It looked old, even though Hasan had zero knowledge of animals, let alone this creature. It looked torn, tired, and seems that Hasan’s gunshot was the last straw. It was not moving anymore, mewling and breathing slowly, growling only when Hasan got too close. 

Hasan felt empty. What led this animal to get out from its den of the trees and to search for food, shelter or just each other? What led to this being to be so utterly hurt and lonely, living in the woods and attacking other life? What led to this absolute mass consummation, anger, pain?

Money?

He plopped to the ground. The stinging pain of his arm had turned into an incredible ache, causing him to lie there still, his senses occupied by too much to move. Drifted off to a dreamless sleep, much different from his first. He did not know if he would ever wake up, but couldn’t bring himself to care, feeling it was only fair. 

In the end, he did woke up.

The creature was by his side, curled around him, cold. No longer making any noise. Coiled together as they were, buried under the dark mist of the forest, covering, sheltering them from the rest of the world. 

2019


End file.
